I'm not arguing Worsfold or the Eagles could've saved Ben. We've all seen the lengths Brian Cousins has been to for his son and the lack of success he's had.To be honest, I want to try and debate with MB here but I'm not sure he has a full understanding of what happened in those years. And he seems to believe that Worsfold, and Worsfold alone, could've stopped Ben Cousins doing what he did. He knew there was an issue from 2004 onwards - but what could he have done about it? Exclusion didn't help. Stripping him of the captaincy didn't help. Rehab didn't help. Deregistration didn't help. Even the police seemed reticent to act. It's a very complex issue and trying to paint Worsfold as the guy responsible for all of this is ludicrous.
But yes look at all the things West Coast did eventually do - exclusion, captaincy, finally acknowledging a problem publicly, then rehab the deregistration. And look at the time line involved. 2006 and 2007. 2-3 years after questions were raised and every action seemingly followed by another chance at redemption.
I see a favourite son coach protecting a favourite son player from the home truths and meaningful interventions that could've been taken earlier.
And it's no so much about Cousins as the large parts of the playing group who all had little intervention taken. I mean here we are less than a decade later and Buckley is tossing out a bunch of players like Heath Shaw for a couple of undisciplined acts on field. Throw back to West Coast and Chad Fletcher nearly dies in a Vegas hotel room and he still plays on at West Coast for several seasons.
I stand by my assertion that Woosha was either naive or foolish and that maybe due to little fault of his own it's still a big mark against his leadership similar to Hird.